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Was amused to find this piece in this mornings Private Eye concerning the expenses arrangements of Kevin Barron: More information on Kevin Barron, previously published on Rotherham Politics, can be found here. .
The starting gun has fired & Parties are selecting candidates for the 2014 Council Elections. It’s more important than we realise in single party places like North Korea and Rotherham. e.g. you want to vote Labour but the candidate they … Continue reading
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) have an interesting website, its interactive and shows the expenses claimed by each of our local MPs.
http://www.parliamentary-standards.org.uk/InteractiveMap.aspx
I see in the period 2012/13 Healey is claiming for a Virgin media bundle TV, Broadband etc at £40.15 a month.
So pleased that my tax pounds are keeping this individual happy watching his favourite programmes, well at least he`s not spending our money on property development!
Our man of the people and king of the trough MacShame even claimed £3.50 in travel costs for a journey in his constituency.
Take a look but not on a full stomach.
Aneurin Bevan
Exam question for Rotherham Labour Party Members.
Subject Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Setting, a provisional Labour run Council, Rotten Metropolitan Borough Council (RMBC).
Scenario.
Locally based company supplies RMBC with goods and services worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Chairman of said company gives gifts and provides hospitality to a senior member of RMBC.
Chairman of said company appointed to the RMBC Independent Remuneration Committee.
Remuneration Committee recommend increases in allowances for RMBC Councillors.
Discuss.
History question to follow.
Aneurin Bevan
Back during the expenses scandal it was revealed that Labour MP John Healey helped himself to £1,500 to replace his front door, £7,000 for a brand new set of windows and over £400 for two televisions. That’s not to mention the £88,000 profit he made from selling the flat he renovated with taxpayers’ money. Read on…….
At long last we have the figures for Rotherham Councillor’s Allowances & Expenses for 2011/12 only three months after our neighbours in Sheffield published theirs.
I’m afraid I don’t have a link but readers can find the full table on page 87 of today’s Rotherham Advertiser. I will let you all make your own assumptions on the relevance of how far into the paper the notice is with no statement or coverage by the wider media.
So here we go in 2011/12 Rotherham Councillors claimed £1,112,003 a drop on last year of 1.2% from £1,125,555 wow how impressive in an age of massive austerity cuts (not).
As readers are aware we like to compare how Rotherham compares to Sheffield where the figures were £1,356,705 in 10/11 and £1,328,178 in 11/12 a drop of 2.1% oh dear Sheffield outperforms Rotherham………….again.
Now for some more numbers
Average claimed per councillor last year
Rotherham £17651
Sheffield £15812
Question: Rotherham Councillors what is it about your role that means you need allowances that are 11.6% higher than your Sheffield equivalents?
This figure also means that by simply reducing allowances to the same as Sheffield Rotherham could have saved £115,857 last year and maybe saved a few of those jobs they cut, but hey I’m sure they can convince us why their own pockets being lined should be a priority.
When comparing Rotherham’s allowances to Sheffields you also need to account for the lighter workload Rotherham’s Councillors have compared to Sheffield. Sheffield has 84 Councillors for a population of 552,700 a ratio of 1 councillor to every 6580 citizens. In Rotherham it is 63 to 253,900 a ratio of 1 councillor to every 4030 citizens.
Question: Rotherham Councillors why do you claim 11.6% more than Sheffield Councillors when you each represent 38.8% fewer people?
Now the big one what does each of your councillors cost you?
In Sheffield last year it was £2.40 per citizen
In Rotherham……………….. £4.38
There you have it each councillor costs every citizen in Rotherham an extra £1.98 than our Sheffield neighbours have to fork out. a difference of 82.5%.
So if we cut our councillors allowances to the same as Sheffields and reduced their numbers to the same ratio of councillors to people as Sheffield (a cut from 63 to 39) we are looking at a total saving of £502,722 based on last years figures.
Personally I’d sooner see that spent on jobs and services rather than on what are at least compared to Sheffield under worked over paid Councillors.
Michael Sylvester
Rotherham Advertiser 27th July: Row over £9,000 Mayor’s Banquet
References:
RMBC: Councillors Allowances 2010-2011 .pdf
Sheffield City Council: Councillors Allowances 2010-2011 .doc
Sheffield City Council: Councillors Allowances 2011-2012 .doc
Roger Stone, is off on a jolly to Bulgaria for four days this week! This comes at the same time, as a weekend visit to Rotherham, by the folks from St Quentin France, accompanied by Receptions and Dinners at what cost? We should be told!
As yet Rotherham Politics has not learnt of the purpose for this, nor which suckers are paying for his four day jolly. So is it ‘Jolly Roger’ now?
Roger Stone, (well the officer who actually wrote it) makes a stab at justifying the outrageous troughing sessions at spurious conferences that take place on a regular basis, but all they have done is to highlight the threadbare nature of their justifications. Most have no discernible benefit to the people of Rotherham.
Read this and weep! https://rotherhampolitics.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/internationallinkspolicy20069.pdf
Another snout in the trough?
It has been revealed today, that Rotherham’s Labour MP, Denis MacShane is being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for his less than open and now it would appear, less than honest approach to his parliamentary claims.
The complaint of 7th July 2009 was indeed submitted by a BNP activist, who is being referred to as the ‘Sleaze buster’, one Michael Barnbrook. The responses to his original complaint can now be viewed here on the website of the BNP Reform Group. Despite the source of the complaint, we should all be grateful that this sorry saga is now to be thoroughly investigated. There are further issues, that go to the heart of our democratic procedures, that will be the subject of a later posting.
In the report of the 12th October Meeting, published 14th October, 2010 of the, Committee on Standards and Privileges reads:
‘the Committee agreed that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards should report to the Metropolitan Police Service the conduct of the Rt hon Member for Rotherham, Mr Denis MacShane’.
This blog, Peter Thirlwall’s Parliamentary Website and Rotherham Independents has featured many of the questionable purchases made on Parliamentary expenses and has openly criticised him for this. Now we feel totally vindicated and Peter Thirlwall’s attempt to raise many of these issues during the General Election campaign now fully justified.
We warned the voters of the Rotherham Constituency and Denis Himself, that MacShane would be eventually forced to answer the many justifiable questions his constituents have asked him but have gone unanswered. Now it has come to pass! We are willing to present our evidence of MacShane’s less than honest or justifiable expenses claims to the Metropolitan Police who we feel confident will be asking Denis many questions and they will. no doubt, get the answers we were denied.
This slippery, oily, arrogant and self-aggrandising politician looks set to follow ‘Honest’ Eric Illsley, Barnsley’s own disgraced MP, into Court to pay the price for his wrongdoing, along with Elliot Morley, Jim Devine and David Chaytor as well as Tories Lord Hanningfield and Lord Taylor.
Now suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party and presumably the Labour Party, it is further evidence that Labour did a very poor job at vetting it’s candidates prior to the General Election and gives the lie to Gordon Brown’s claims to have done so, yet again Labour has let us down so badly! How many more greedy MPs will will come out of the ‘woodwork’ into the light one wonders?
Denis MacShane claimed £125,000 in office costs for this! It's Rotherham! NOT Central London!
Attached to his house in Rotherham just off Moorgate Road this is his rather expensive Constituency office in Rotherham.
No services are provided to this ‘office’ so without using his house attached his staff could not possibly work there! This may be a good time for Kath Sims, his secretary who works in this ‘office’, to look for a new job, I would have thought?
His brother, Edmund Matyjaszek, is also embroiled in this expenses controversy as Denis made a number of payments to a rather shadowy organisation called the European Policy Institute for ‘research and translation’. Headmaster Edmund, may come to regret this grubby little arrangement with his brother.
Many questions are still being asked about the eight laptops he bought from his parliamentary expenses, where are they now? Where have they been? Who has been using them? All unanswered.
These issues and the many other questionable expenses arrangements he has made over the years look set to bite him on the backside, big style!
We may now have a clue as to why he is so upset with IPSA and the new arrangements, making it more difficult to conceal any ‘Spanish’ practises from the authorities, perhaps?
In some parts of the Rotherham Constituency Labour Party there are quiet celebrations at Denis’s discomfiture and the sound of knives being sharpened ready for another attempt to rid themselves of this odious and disagreeable man, who they didn’t want in the first place. Power to their elbows I say!
There is also a small group of very embarrassed supporters who are ruing the day they signed his nomination papers only a few months ago. They should be suitably chastened, because their actions now look foolish indeed! I hope they are proud of themselves for the shame they helped to bring to our Town.
Roll Call of Dishonour, MacShane’s signatories to his nomination:
Anna Chester, Keith Brisland, Barry Kaye, Ian Barron, Julie Currie, John Foden, Ian Jones, Kath Sims, Richard Crow, Sarah Crow, Mahroof Hussain, Zlakha Ahmed, Tracey Jones, Nellie McHale, Christine Burgess, Quereshi Parveen, Diana Swanson, Roger Swanson, Dave Pickering, Subodh Kapoor, Jahangir Akhtar, James Burgess, Simon Currie, Rekha Kapoor, Stephen Parkin, John Price, Tom Henley, Craig Mitchell, Alan Buckley and Ruth Hobson.
In the Press:
Hemsworth & South Elmsall Express
Broadcasters:
PressTV Iranian
Blogs:
See also:
MPs who abused expenses staff should be named, former watchdog claims
Swearing MPs abuse expenses staff ‘monkeys’
House of Commons chiefs ‘failing to stop sex pest MPs’
Expenses chiefs urged to name MPs who called them ‘monkeys’
Denis MacShane working hard for Rotherham?
Denis’s Rant! – now the analysis, what was really on his mind?
Forgemasters £80M Loan Cancelled! Labour Cynicism Revealed!
MacShane still doesn’t get it! Give us our money back!
Look! Who was missing! Yes it was MacShane, of course!
MacShane the Truth! Time for Change in Rotherham!
Peter Thirlwall, Independent for Rotherham. What motivates my campaign!
MacShane or is that MacShame, makes friends with Guido Fawkes Again!
Peter’s Perspective – On MacShane
MacShane has many questions to answer?
‘Two Homes’ MacShane must go! Part 2
Rotherham Politics 